A state university system in the United States is a group of public universities supported by an individual state or a similar entity such as the District of Columbia. These systems constitute the majority of public-funded universities in the country. Each state supports at least one such system.

A state university system normally means a single legal entity and administration, but may consist of several institutions, each with its own identity as a university. Some states—such as California and Texas—support more than one such system.

State universities get subsidies from their states. The amount of the subsidy varies from university to university and state to state, but the effect is to lower tuition costs below that of private universities for students from that state or district. As more and more Americans attend college, and private tuition rates increase well beyond the rate of inflation, admission to state universities is becoming more and more competitive.

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State university systems were a product of the demand for higher education in the newly formed United States. The tradition of publicly funded state colleges began primarily in the southern states, where in the east and northeastern states other private educational institutions were already established. There remains significant debate about which institution or institutions are the oldest public universities in the United States.

The University of Georgia is the country's first chartered public university, established on January 27, 1785 by an act of the General Assembly of Georgia. However, the University of Georgia did not hold classes until 16 years later in the fall of 1801. The first collegiate-level classes conducted by a public institution were at another Georgia institution, the Academy of Richmond County, chartered in 1783 with instruction beginning in 1785. While the Academy, later known as Augusta State University and now merged into Augusta University, was founded as a high school, it taught college-level classes from its creation, and its graduates were accepted into four-year colleges as sophomores or juniors, effectively making it a combination of a modern high school and community college. The school eventually dropped high school instruction, but remained a community college until becoming a four-year institution in 1963.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while chartered four years after Georgia in 1789, was the first state university to hold classes. Classes began at UNC in 1795, and UNC is the only state university to have graduated students in the 18th century. The University of South Carolina was chartered in 1801 and held classes for the first time in 1805. The University of Tennessee was originally chartered as Blount College in 1794, but had a very difficult beginning—graduating only one student—and did not begin receiving the promised state funds until 1807 when it was renamed East Tennessee University.

Determining which state university was the "first" is further complicated by the case of New Jersey's state university system. Facing the embarrassment of being the only state left that had not established a state university, the New Jersey Legislature decided to commission an already existing private university as its state university, rather than build one from the ground up, as other states had done. Rutgers University, which had previously been a private school affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church, was designated as a state university by acts of the legislature in 1945 and 1956. It became a 'System' with the absorptions of Newark University in 1946 and The College of South Jersey in 1950, becoming Rutgers' Newark and Camden campuses, respectively. Rutgers was chartered in 1766, nineteen years before the University of Georgia, but did not become the State University of New Jersey for another 179 years.

Castleton University in Vermont is the oldest state university in New England, chartered in 1787. This was soon followed by the charter of The University of Vermont (UVM) in 1791. However, neither institution was a "state university" in the modern sense of the term until many decades later. Castleton began as the Rutland County Grammar School. It did not become a postsecondary institution until the campus became home to the State Normal School in 1867. Although the school became state-supported at that time, its campus remained privately owned until 1912. UVM was chartered as a private institution and did not become a public university until 1865. The first institution in New England to actually operate as a public university is Westfield State University in Massachusetts, which has been public since its founding in 1838.

Consideration of public higher education was included in the earliest westward expansion of the US, with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established the Northwest Territory. It stated: "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Ohio University (1804) was the first state school so established in the territory (and is also the oldest state university that has continuously operated as a public institution), with the other developing states similarly creating public universities to serve the citizens. On a national basis, the state university system was also assisted by the establishment of the Land-grant universities, under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts of 1862 and 1890.

In some cases, the unqualified name now has no official status, but is used informally for either an individual university (particularly in sporting and similar contexts) or for the university system of which it is now part (particularly in administrative and academic contexts). Examples include:

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Education in the United States
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Education in the United States is provided by public, private, and home schools. Funding comes from the state, local, and federal government, private schools are generally free to determine their own curriculum and staffing policies, with voluntary accreditation available through independent regional accreditation authorities. About 87% of school-age children attend schools, about 10% attend private schools. Education is compulsory over an age range starting between five and eight and ending somewhere between ages sixteen and eighteen, depending on the state and this requirement can be satisfied in public schools, state-certified private schools, or an approved home school program. In most schools, education is divided into three levels, elementary school, middle or junior school, and high school. Children are usually divided by age groups into grades, ranging from kindergarten and first grade for the youngest children, there are also a large number and wide variety of publicly and privately administered institutions of higher education throughout the country. Post-secondary education, divided into college, as the first tertiary degree, the United States spends more per student on education than any other country. In 2014, the Pearson/Economist Intelligence Unit rated US education as 14th best in the world, just behind Russia. In 2015 the Programme for International Student Assessment rated U. S. high school students #40 globally in Math and #24 in Science and Reading. ”King, Jr. acknowledged the results in conceding U. S. students were well behind their peers. According to a report published by the U. S. News & World Report, of the top ten colleges and universities in the world, government-supported and free public schools for all began to be established after the American Revolution. Between 1750 and 1870 parochial schools appeared as ad hoc efforts by parishes, historically, many parochial elementary schools were developed which were open to all children in the parish, mainly Catholics, but also Lutherans, Calvinists and Orthodox Jews. Nonsectarian Common schools designed by Horace Mann were opened, which taught the three Rs and also history and geography, States passed laws to make schooling compulsory between 1852 and 1917. They also used federal funding designated by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts of 1862 and 1890 to set up land grant colleges specializing in agriculture, by 1870, every state had free elementary schools, albeit only in urban centers. His movement spread to many other Southern states to small colleges for Colored or Negro students entitled A. & M. or A. & T. some of which later developed into state universities. By 1910,72 percent of children attended school, private schools spread during this time, as well as colleges and — in the rural centers — land grant colleges also. Between 1910 and 1940 the high school movement resulted in increasing public high school enrollment. By 1930,100 percent of children attended school, during World War II, enrollment in high schools and colleges plunged as many high school and college students dropped out to take war jobs. The 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v, in 1965, the far-reaching Elementary and Secondary Education Act, passed as a part of President Lyndon B

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History of education in the United States
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The first American schools in the thirteen original colonies opened in the 17th century. Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States, the first free taxpayer-supported public school in North America, the Mather School, was opened in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1639. At first, the rudiments of literacy and arithmetic were taught inside the family, literacy rates were much higher in New England because much of the population had been deeply involved in the Protestant Reformation and learned to read in order to read the Scriptures. Literacy was much lower in the South, where the Anglican Church was the established church, single working-class people formed a large part of the population in the early years, arriving as indentured servants. The planter class did not support public education but arranged for private tutors for their children, by the mid-19th century, the role of the schools in New England had expanded to such an extent that they took over many of the educational tasks traditionally handled by parents. All the New England colonies required towns to set up schools, in 1642 the Massachusetts Bay Colony made proper education compulsory, other New England colonies followed this example. Similar statutes were adopted in colonies in the 1640s and 1650s. The schools were all male and all white, with few facilities for girls, in the 18th century, common schools were established, students of all ages were under the control of one teacher in one room. Although they were supplied at the local level, they were not free. Students families were charged tuition or rate bills, the larger towns in New England opened grammar schools, the forerunner of the modern high school. The most famous was the Boston Latin School, which is still in operation as a high school. Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut, was another, by the 1780s, most had been replaced by private academies. By the early 19th century New England operated a network of high schools, now called prep schools, typified by Phillips Andover Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy. They became the major feeders for Ivy League colleges in the mid-19th century and these prep schools became coeducational in the 1970s, and remain highly prestigious in the 21st century. Residents of the Upper South, centered on the Chesapeake Bay, in late 17th century Maryland, the Catholic Jesuits operated some schools for Catholic students. Generally the planter class hired tutors for the education of their children or sent them to private schools, during the colonial years, some sent their sons to England or Scotland for schooling. In March 1620, George Thorpe sailed from Bristol for Virginia and he became a deputy in charge of 10,000 acres of land to be set aside for a university and Indian school. The plans for the school for Native Americans ended when George Thorpe was killed in the Indian Massacre of 1622, in Virginia, rudimentary schooling for the poor and paupers was provided by the local parish

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Education reform
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Education reform is the name given to the goal of changing public education. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed, however, since the 1980s, education reform has been focused on changing the existing system from one focused on inputs to one focused on outputs. In the United States, education reform acknowledges and encourages public education as the source of K-12 education for American youth. Education reformers desire to make public education into a market, where accountability creates high-stakes from curriculum standards tied to standardized tests, as a result of this input-output system, equality has been conceptualized as an end point, which is often evidenced by an achievement gap among diverse populations. This conceptualization of education reform is based on the market-logic of competition, as a consequence, competition creates inequality which has continued to drive the market-logic of equality at an end point by reproduce the achievement gap among diverse youth. Overall, education reform has and continues to be used as a substitute for needed reforms in the United States. The one constant for all forms of education includes the idea that small changes in education will have large social returns in citizen health, wealth. For example, a stated motivation has been to reduce cost to students, from ancient times until the 1800s, one goal was to reduce the expense of a classical education. Ideally, classical education is undertaken with a highly educated full-time personal tutor, historically, this was available only to the most wealthy. Encyclopedias, public libraries and grammar schools are examples of innovations intended to lower the cost of a classical education, related reforms attempted to develop similar classical results by concentrating on why, and which questions neglected by classical education. Abstract, introspective answers to these questions can theoretically compress large amounts of facts into relatively few principles and this path was taken by some Transcendentalist educators, such as Amos Bronson Alcott. In the early age, Victorian schools were reformed to teach commercially useful topics, such as modern languages and mathematics, rather than classical subjects, such as Latin. Many reformers focused on reforming society by reforming education on scientific, humanistic, pragmatic or democratic principles. John Dewey and Anton Makarenko are prominent examples of such reformers, some reformers incorporated several motivations, e. g. Maria Montessori, who both educated for peace, and to meet the needs of the child. Reform has taken many forms and directions, throughout history and the present day, the meaning and methods of education have changed through debates over what content or experiences result in an educated individual or an educated society. Changes may be implemented by individual educators and/or by broad-based school organization and/or by curriculum changes with performance evaluations, Plato believed that children would never learn unless they wanted to learn. Compulsory learning never sticks in the mind, an educational debate in the time of the Roman Empire arose after Christianity had achieved broad acceptance. Though educational reform occurred on a level at various points throughout history

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Public university
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A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. Whether a national university is considered public varies from one country to another, in Egypt, Al-Azhar University opened in 975 AD as the second oldest university in the world. In Nigeria Public Universities can be established by both the Federal Government and by State Governments, students are enrolled after completing the 8-4-4 system of education and attaining a mark of C+ or above. They are also eligible for a low interest loan from the Higher Education Loan Board and they are expected to pay back the loan after completing higher education. South Africa has 23 public tertiary institutions, either categorised as a traditional university or a comprehensive university. Almost entire national universities in Brunei are public universities and these are major universities in Brunei, University of Brunei Darussalam Brunei Technological University Sultan Sharif Ali Islamic University There are 40 public universities in Bangladesh. The University Grant Commission is the body for all the public universities in Bangladesh. The universities do not deal directly with the government, but with the University Grants Commission, recently many private universities are established under the Private University Act of 1992. In mainland China, nearly all universities and research institutions are public and currently, the public universities are usually run by the provincial governments, there are also circumstances where the municipal governments administer the universities. Some public universities are national, which are administered by the central government. Private undergraduate colleges do exist, which are vocational colleges sponsored by private enterprises. The majority of universities are not entitled to award bachelors degrees. Public universities usually enjoy higher reputation domestically, eight institutions are funded by the University Grants Committee. The Academy for Performing Arts also receives funding from the government, the Open University of Hong Kong is also a public university, but it is largely self-financed. The Shue Yan University is the private institution with the status of a university. There are public and private institutes in Indonesia. The government provide public universities, institutes, high schools and academies in each province, the private educational institution usually provided by religious organizations, public organizations, and some big companies. In India, most universities and nearly all research institutions are public, There are some private undergraduate colleges, mostly engineering schools, but a majority of these are affiliated to public universities

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University of Georgia
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Its primary location is a 762-acre campus adjacent to the college town of Athens, Georgia, approximately an hours drive from the global city of Atlanta. The university has been labeled one of the Public Ivies, a publicly funded university considered to provide a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League. The university was founded in 1785 as the United States first state-chartered university and its historic North Campus is on the U. S. National Register of Historic Places as a designated historic district. The contiguous campus areas include rolling hills, gardens, and extensive green space including nature walks, fields, shrubbery, and large and varied arboreta. Close to the campus is the universitys 58-acre Health Sciences Campus that also has an extensive landscaped green space, more than 400 trees. The university offers over 140 degree programs in an array of disciplines. Consisting of thirteen separate libraries, the UGA Libraries rank among the nation’s largest and best research libraries containing 5.7 million volumes, the University of Georgia is one of 126 member institutions that comprise the Association of Research Libraries. The university is organized into seventeen schools and colleges, the university has three primary campuses. The largest one is the campus in Athens that has 460 buildings. The university has two campuses located in Atlanta and Lawrenceville, Georgia. The university operates several service and outreach stations spread across the state, the total acreage of the university in 30 Georgia counties is 41,539 acres. Varsity and intramural student athletics are a part of student life. UGA served as a member of the SEC in 1932. In their 121-year history, the varsity sports teams have won 39 national championships and 130 conference championships. The Georgia Redcoat Marching Band, the marching band of the university, plays at sports. The Senatus Academicus was composed of the Board of Visitors and the Board of Trustees with the Georgia Senate presiding over those two boards, the first meeting of the universitys board of trustees was held in Augusta, Georgia on February 13,1786. The meeting installed its first president, Abraham Baldwin, a native of Connecticut, Baldwin was a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and one of two Georgia delegates to sign the final document. Many features on the University of Georgia campus resemble the campus of Yale, on July 2,1799, the Senatus Academicus met again in Louisville, Georgia and decided that the time was right to open the university

6.
Augusta State University
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Augusta State University was a public university located in Augusta, Georgia, United States. On August 10,2012, Augusta State merged with Georgia Health Sciences University to form Georgia Regents University, Augusta State University was founded as the Academy of Richmond County in 1783 as a high school. It opened in 1785 and offered classes from its earliest days. Graduates were accepted into colleges as sophomores or juniors, operation of the academy was overseen by a board of trustees until 1909, when control was passed to the Augusta Board of Education. The college-level classes continued to be overseen by a committee of the state legislature, as enrollment increased, land for a new building was purchased. In 1925, prior to completion of the new building, the Junior College of Augusta was established, in 1957, the junior college separated from the academy and moved to its present location on Walton Way. In 1958, the became a part of the University System of Georgia. It remained a college until 1963, when it attained four-year status. A second campus was added on Wrightsboro Road, which now houses athletics, kinesiology & health science, a golf house, in 1996, Augusta College was renamed Augusta State University, along with name changes mandated for most of the rest of the university system. On August 10,2012, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved the merger of the school by fall 2013 with nearby Georgia Health Sciences University, ricardo Azziz took the helm of ASU in summer of 2012 in preparation for the oncoming consolidation. The board named the new university Georgia Regents University, which caused local controversy. It also triggered a lawsuit for alleged infringement by Regent University in Virginia. On September 15,2015 Georgia Regents University voted and changed the name to Augusta University and this change came from years of frustration from alumni and decreased fundraising brought in following the name change to GRU. Augusta University was one of the top choices during the name change from Augusta State to GRU. Students could earn associate, bachelor, master, and specialist degrees in over 100 programs of study as well as a paralegal certificate and a cooperative doctorate. There was an Honors Program as well as a Cooperative Education program in which students alternated between classroom enrollment and real-life work experience in their field of study, Students also had opportunities for internships and study abroad programs. The James M. Hull College of Business was featured by The Princeton Review in the 2008 edition of, in May 2009 the university hosted the 25th annual National Science Olympiad tournament. Augusta States athletic programs competed at the Division II level in the Peach Belt Conference of the NCAA, except for the mens and womens golf programs, both of which were Division I Independents

7.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also known as UNC, or simply Carolina, is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. It is one of the 17 campuses of the University of North Carolina system, the first public institution of higher education in North Carolina, the school opened its doors to students on February 12,1795. The university offers degrees in over 70 courses of study through fourteen colleges, in 1952, North Carolina opened its own hospital, UNC Health Care, for research and treatment, and has since specialized in cancer care. The schools students, alumni, and sports teams are known as Tar Heels, the campus covers 729 acres of Chapel Hills downtown area, encompassing the Morehead Planetarium and the many stores and shops located on Franklin Street. Students can participate in over 550 officially recognized student organizations, the student-run newspaper The Daily Tar Heel has won national awards for collegiate media, while the student radio station WXYC provided the worlds first internet radio broadcast. North Carolina is one of the members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Competing athletically as the Tar Heels, North Carolina has achieved success in sports, most notably in mens basketball, womens soccer. As a result, Womans College was renamed the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in 1955, UNC Chapel Hill officially desegregated its undergraduate divisions. During World War II, UNC Chapel Hill was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission, during the 1960s, the campus was the location of significant political protest. Prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, protests about local racial segregation which began quietly in Franklin Street restaurants led to mass demonstrations, the climate of civil unrest prompted the 1963 Speaker Ban Law prohibiting speeches by communists on state campuses in North Carolina. The law was criticized by university Chancellor William Brantley Aycock and university President William Friday. A group of UNC Chapel Hill students, led by Student Body President Paul Dickson, filed a lawsuit in U. S. federal court, and on February 20,1968, the Speaker Ban Law was struck down. From the late 1990s and onward, UNC Chapel Hill expanded rapidly with a 15% increase in student population to more than 28,000 by 2007. Professor Oliver Smithies was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2007 for his work in genetics, additionally, Aziz Sancar was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2015 for his work in understanding the molecular repair mechanisms of DNA. The current chancellor is Carol Folt, the first woman to hold the post, UNC Chapel Hills 729-acre campus is dominated by two central quads, Polk Place and McCorkle Place. Adjacent to Polk Place is a sunken brick courtyard known as the Pit where students will gather, the Morehead–Patterson Bell Tower, located in the heart of campus, tolls the quarter-hour. In 1999, UNC Chapel Hill was one of sixteen recipients of the American Society of Landscape Architects Medallion Awards and was identified as one of 50 college or university works of art by T. A, gaines in his book The Campus as a Work of Art. The universitys campus is divided into three regions, usually referred to as north campus, middle campus, and south campus

8.
University of South Carolina
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The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with seven satellite campuses. Its campus covers over 359 acres in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House, the University is categorized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as having highest research activity. It also houses the largest collection of Robert Burns and Scottish literature materials outside Scotland, the University of South Carolina has an enrollment of approximately 49,220 students, with 33,575 on the main Columbia campus as of fall 2015. USC also has several thousand students in feeder programs at surrounding technical colleges. Professional schools on the Columbia campus include business, engineering, law, medicine, pharmacy, on January 10,1805, having an initial enrollment of nine students, the college commenced classes with a traditional classical curriculum. The first president was the Baptist minister and theologian Reverend Jonathan Maxcy and he was an alumnus of Brown University, with an honorary degree from Harvard University. Before coming to the college, Maxcy had served as the president of Brown. Maxcys tenure lasted from 1804 through 1820, when South Carolina College opened its doors in 1801, the building now known as Rutledge College was the only building on campus. Located one block southeast of the State Capitol, it served as an office, academic building, residence hall. However, the plan for the original campus called for a total of eleven buildings. In 1807, the original Presidents House was the building to be erected. The building now known as DeSaussure College followed shortly thereafter, when completed, all eleven buildings formed a U-shape open to Sumter Street. This modified quadrangle became known as the Horseshoe, as with other southern universities in the antebellum period, the most important organizations for students were the two literary societies, the Clariosophic Society and the Euphradian Society. These two societies, which arose from a split in a literary society known as the Philomathic. The College became a symbol of the South in the period as its graduates were on the forefront of secession from the Union. Despite the depletion of students, the professors issued a notice that the college would temporarily close and would reopen to those under eighteen. When the college reopened on March 17, only nine students showed up for classes, on June 25 with the consent of the state government, the Confederate authorities took possession of the college buildings and converted them into a hospital. After many unsuccessful attempts to reopen the college, the trustees passed a resolution on December 2,1863 that officially closed the college

9.
University of Tennessee
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The University of Tennessee is a public sun- and land-grant university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. It hosts almost 28,000 students from all 50 states, in its 2017 universities ranking, U. S. News & World Report ranked UT 103rd among all national universities and 46th among public institutions of higher learning. Seven alumni have been selected as Rhodes Scholars, James M. Buchanan,41, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics. Also affiliated with the university are the Howard H. Baker, the university is a direct partner of the University of Tennessee Medical Center, which is one of two Level I trauma centers in East Tennessee. UT is one of the oldest public universities in the United States, when Samuel Carrick, its first president and only faculty member, died in 1809, the school was temporarily closed until 1820. When it reopened, it began experiencing growing pains, thomas Jefferson had previously recommended that the college leave its confining single building in the city and relocate to a place it could spread out. Ironically, in the Summer of 1826, the trustees explored Barbara Hill as a potential site, in 1840, the college was elevated to East Tennessee University. Tennessee was a member of the Confederacy in 1862 when the Morrill Act was passed, on February 28,1867, Congress passed a special Act making the State of Tennessee eligible to participate in the Morrill Act of 1862 program. In January 1869, ETU was designated as Tennessees recipient of the Land-Grant designation, in accepting the funds, the university would focus upon instructing students in military, agricultural, and mechanical subjects. ETU eventually received $396,000 as its endowment under the program, Trustees soon approved the establishment of a medical program under the auspices of the Nashville School of Medicine and added advanced degree programs. East Tennessee University was renamed the University of Tennessee in 1879 by the state legislature, during World War II, UT was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. The campus is headed by a Chancellor who functions as the executive officer of the campus, responsible for its daily administration. The chancellor reports to the president of the university system and is elected annually by the UT Board of Trustees at the recommendation of the system president, jimmy Cheek has been Chancellor of the Knoxville campus since February 1,2009. Joseph A. DiPietro has been president since January 1,2011. Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan D. Martin is responsible for the administration of the Knoxville campus. On December 15,2016 the UT Board of Trustees confirmed Dr. Beverly J. Davenport as the next Chancellor of the Knoxville campus and she will begin her role on February 15,2017. Campus policing and security is provided by the University of Tennessee Police Department.4 percent from 2000 to 2009, many doctors and nurses at UTMC have integrated careers as teachers and healthcare professionals, and the center promotes itself as the areas only academic, or teaching hospital. The new UT Medical Center Heart Hospital received its first patient on April 27,2010, in Fall 2016, the university enrolled 21,863 undergraduate and 5,982 graduate and professional students, 50% of students are female, 50% are male

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New Jersey
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New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania, New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state but the 11th-most populous and the most densely populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies entirely within the statistical areas of New York City. New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, in the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. New Jersey was the site of decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War in the 18th century. In the 19th century, factories in cities such as Camden, Paterson, Newark, Trenton, around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered North Africa. The pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains, around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers that reached New Jersey. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as rivers, swamps. New Jersey was originally settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time of contact, scheyichbi is the Lenape name for the land that is now New Jersey. The Lenape society was divided into clans that were based upon common female ancestors. These clans were organized into three distinct phratries identified by their animal sign, Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf and they first encountered the Dutch in the early 17th century, and their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade. The Dutch became the first Europeans to lay claim to lands in New Jersey, the Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic states. Although the European principle of ownership was not recognized by the Lenape. The first to do so was Michiel Pauw who established a patronship called Pavonia in 1630 along the North River which eventually became the Bergen, peter Minuits purchase of lands along the Delaware River established the colony of New Sweden. During the English Civil War, the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown and it was from the Royal Square in St. Helier that Charles II of England was proclaimed King in 1649, following the execution of his father, Charles I. The North American lands were divided by Charles II, who gave his brother, the Duke of York, the region between New England and Maryland as a proprietary colony. James then granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War, Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton, the area was named the Province of New Jersey. Since the states inception, New Jersey has been characterized by ethnic, New England Congregationalists settled alongside Scots Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed migrants

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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also known as UNC, UNC Chapel Hill or simply Carolina, is a public …

Panoramic image of the main quad

Franklin Street forms the northern border of main campus and contains many popular restaurants and shops. In addition, it serves as a focal point for cultural events including Halloween festivities and major basketball victory rallies.

The Old Well, a symbol of the university, stands at the heart of campus.